Late Night
by CherryColoredSoot
Summary: Peter confronts Rocket about his nightmares and they talk about it. Has some language and is my first fanfic so it might not be that good.


Her left ear. That had been the first part of her body that had been violently torn off, then he got a finger and then it went blurry. Too much blood, so much screaming, and a whole lot of bad memories had come from the white-walled place but this one had been a very prominent and memorable one, even though it was one of the memories that had gone fuzzy the quickest.

Their stupid faces, the proud and excited faces of those horrible creatures that had done everything to him. They had been so incredibly interested in his ability to learn and what he was capable of, of course they wanted him to-

Rocket propped himself upright in his bunk, he took a few moments to catch his breath and let his eyes clear. He couldn't stay in the past anymore. He needed to move on, he wasn't the Rocket that had done that anymore, he was a Guardian, a Guardian of the Galaxy.

"was just a nightmare" he whispered to himself, "Nothin' more than a bad dream"

Rocket took a deep breath before throwing off his blankets and moving so his feet hung off the edge of the bed. The digital clock across from him bathed the entire room in a light blue, it reflected off all the small scrap pieces he had scattered across his room, and the half-finished gun that lay in the middle of his floor.

For a few seconds, Rocket debated what he should do now that he was awake because getting back to sleep seemed to be the farthest thing from his mind at that moment. After a minute of staring at the scrap on his floor, he stretched out his arms and jumped off the bed, landing on his hind legs. He could hear his cybernetics click as he stretched again and moved to his door.

The panel to his room slid open quietly. Rocket did his best to muffle his footsteps so that he wouldn't wake anyone else and soon found himself at the entrance of the flight deck, climbing the ladder.

As he reached the deck he was greeted with the billions of shining stars that filled the alien system. Chances were that nothing inhabited the space within a few thousand-mile radii and that this galaxy had not been touched by any government's expansion yet. He felt oddly grateful for that, despite the fact that there were millions of other places just like this, he guessed that it was nice to know some things had been left untouched.

About half an hour passed by before he heard someone shuffling around in their sleeping quarters and someone moving to another door, he then heard the panel sliding. Soon he could hear the steady footsteps of his Terran friend moving to the empty floor below Rocket, he walked with such a distinct rhythm that it wasn't hard to distinguish his walking from the other Guardians anymore. Rocket listened intently as Quill tried to climb up the stairs onto the flight deck, his feet echoed and he cursed under his breath as he tried to figure out how to get up in the dark.

Rocket knew that Quill could not see in the dark like him, nor was he as small and nimble. It really showed in moments like these when Quill struggled with something that Rocket had been able to do with relative ease.

Soon Quill was behind Rocket. Peter's feet shuffled awkwardly as he moved to the seat at the right of Rocket and sat down.

Rocket didn't acknowledge Quill's presence and continued to lazy watch the stars, flicking his tail with the impatience of knowing what Quill was trying to do. Peter cleared his throat and looked over at Rocket, but the small raccoon did not meet his stare and instead continued to observe the endless abyss around them.

"so...Uh...Nice night isn't it?" Rocket switched his gaze to Peter's reflection off the controls, the Terran's hands fidgeted with the edge of his shirt and he continued to try and make eye contact with his small friend.

"Quite a few stars. Y'know my mom and I used to watch-"

"Cut the crap Quill" Rocket stated, turning to face a surprising looking Peter "why are you here?"

Silence filled the space between them as Peter's eyes narrowed"You don't need to worry about me. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself"

"That's the thing…" Peter said cautiously, "You don't need to face everything alone anymore, you're part of this team, and being part of a team means taking care of each other."

"Pfft." The raccoon turned away from Quill and focused on the blinking lights of the controls in front of him instead.

Rocket knew that if any of his friends heard of even half the things he had done in those labs then he would be off the team before he could even say 'Halfworld'. That was why the only being who knew a fraction of his past was Groot, and since the old Groot died at Xandar, no one on the ship knew anything about Rocket's origins 'cept for the cybernetics.

"I'm being serious Rocket." Quill shifted in his seat so he was facing Rocket as much as the seat would allow, "We are a team, we stick together through thick and thin, and if something is wrong you need to tell someone about it."

Rocket continued to gaze into the galaxies surrounding the window, to him it seemed like he was watching all of this go by on a screen instead of being on the other side of reinforced glass.

Peter let out a sigh before trying to follow Rocket's gaze into the endless stars. Despite everything that had happened only weeks ago on Ego's planet and all the trust he thought they had built up over the time they had spent, Rocket still refused to tell him anything. Quill knew that his raccoon friend had nightmares from whatever horrible lab had created him, and that despite his defensiveness around it and his adamant opinion that it was fine, Quill knew that what had happened would haunt Rocket for the rest of his life.

But he didn't have to face that burden alone. Peter had gotten Drax, Mantis and even Gamora to be more open about their pasts and let their fears and memories be rested on everyone's shoulders instead of facing it alone. But Rocket still kept to himself, he wouldn't talk about what type of nightmare woke him up or why he always came to look at the stars on the nights he couldn't sleep. With all of Rocket's behavior combined, Peter was reasonably concerned about his friend and wanted to make sure that he was okay.

"Y'know we wouldn't think of you any differently right? No matter what happens you will always have a place on this team." The comment was a futile attempt to get Rocket to talk in Peter's opinion, but it was better than nothing.

Rocket just grinned slightly before shaking his head slightly, "Don't make a promise you can't keep Quill"

"What makes you think I can't keep a promise like that?" Peter paused, his hand picked at the edge of his armrest, he sighed then continued, "We don't hold things in our past against each other Rocket, we talk about them and then do our best to move on, if you need to talk about something we're… We're here for you Rocket."

"You don't know what I did before I was part of this team. You have no idea who I was before I was part of this team…"

"You're right, I don't know who you were or what you did, but I now that some stupid ass dudes didn't some effed up shit to you and you won't talk about it or let anyone try to make it better or easier for you." Peter was starting to get a little frustrated, they had spent months together and Rocket still acted as if Quill was some sort of stranger

A few moments passed before Quill continued his small rant, "I'm sick and tired of you acting like you gotta face everything alone man! You are a part of this team and I don't know how many times I say that before it gets through your thick skull!"

"Stop it."Rocket turned away, but it didn't change the fact that Quill heard him sniffle, or the nearly silent catching of his breath, "Damn humies and your stupid emotions, you're infecting everyone on this ship!"

The small raccoon's retaliation was a weak cover-up for the fact that Rocket was crying, both of them knew that but Quill did his best to ignore it, but Peter could feel the guilt rising in his chest. He shouldn't have gotten that aggressive that quickly, he had come up here to try and make Rocket feel better, not worse, and now he had done something he didn't think he'd ever be able to do while still having his head attached to his shoulders, he made Rocket cry. They sat on the deck staring up at the stars for several moments before Rocket finally managed to speak up.

"Sorry, I… I'll go." Quill got up to leave before he made the situation worse but before he made to the ladder, Rocket spoke.

"If I tell you what happened… You… You wouldn't understand."

Peter turned around to look at his small friend slumped in his chair, "Even if I don't I'll still try to support you. Everyone on the team would try to support you. It doesn't matter how bad it is, we aren't just gonna walk away when you need us."

"Fine… You win I'll tell ya about it just." Rocket breathed in harshly, "Take it seriously okay?"

"I Promise I'll take it seriously, I would never make a joke about your past Rocket." Quill moved cautiously back to his seat, keeping his attention on Rocket.

Rocket let out a shacking sigh then started, "When I was still in the lab they uh… They made us, me an' the other 'test subjects' participate in these uh... experiments" Rocket looked up at Quill to meet his gaze as he said that, trying to gauge his emotions on the word.

But Quill just stared back as respectively as a space pirate could manage and nodded slightly, making sure to keep his entire focus on what Rocket was saying.

"An' one day this big 'ol dumbass decided that he uh… He wanted to try a different kind of experiment" Rocket's shoulders sagged as the smaller details fit into the gaps of his memories, his eyes drooped noticeably as he continued. "They put me an' this other terrified creature in a room an'... An' told us to kill each other."

Everything was quiet, it was as if everything within the universe had stopped moving to listen to Rocket's next words.

" They said that if one of us didn' win then they'd just kill us both and so… And so I compiled." Rocket eyes were now fixed on his feet, his hands were bunched in little fists at the side of his legs, "She didn' even have a chance and there was... there was so much blood and I just… I just Killed her."

Quill watched his small friend try and blink away the tears but they were adamant, soon the small droplets of water were crawling down his cheek.

"Holy shit man… That's not your... It's not…" Peter found himself stumbling across his own words trying to find something even slightly reassuring

Another few moments passed before Peter finally decided to move off his chair and sit next to Rocket, with much hesitance Quill moved his hand to attempt and pet Rocket. The moment his hand touched the Raccoon's head, Rocket flinched, but after a few soft strokes on the head, he relaxed then started to cry freely.

"I'm just a monster," Rocket said his voice was shaking, "they just created a little-"

"You aren't a monster Rocket. You were scared of what they would do so you did what they asked, no one can blame you for what happened in that damn lab." Peter gave Rocket a serious look before continuing, "I wish I could find those people who did that to you and make 'em pay, hell, we could do that! We could find 'em and blow all of those jackasses up! Watch 'em run around in burnin lab coats!"

Rocket let out a weak chuckle then looked back at Peter, "You don't think I'm a monster?

"No, Never. The real monsters are the people who did this" Quill made a small gesture to the pieces of metal in Rocket's back, "Only monsters would do something this cruel and make you suffer like they did."

Rocket didn't respond but started to cry harder, his sobs rattled his small chest, soon the small raccoon found himself enveloped in the terran's arms.

"If 'ya tell anyone about this then they won't ever find your body, Quill." Rocket stated weakly, Peter nodded, he wouldn't dream of telling anyone about this, unless of course, he did, in fact, have a death wish.

The next half an hour was spent with Rocket telling small bits of his history to Quill, and Peter doing his best to reassure and make his small friend feel even a little better. Eventually, they both realized how late, or rather, how early it was in the morning and agreed that they should both try to get even a little bit more rest.

Before they moved to head back to their rooms though, Rocket said "Y'know how you said that we could hunt 'em down?" Rocket looked up at Peter and watched as he nodded quietly, "Could we? I mean… Could we go and make sure they don't make another thing like me?"

"If that's what you want, I'm sure we could make it work. 'Course we'd have to tell the rest of the team and most likely get the authorities involved depending on how big of an organization it is," Peter paused his rambling for a moment, he didn't know how Rocket would react to any government getting involved with his past, but he continued anyway, "but yes, we could hunt them down and stop 'em from hurting anyone else."

Rocket contemplated Quill's words for a few seconds before nodding, "I guess I'll see you in the Mornin, Quill."

"Night, Rocket" Peter said quietly, before walking back into his room.


End file.
